St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-11-16
GIRLS BECOMING MASCULINE.
They are Growing Less Feminine
Through Working Side by Side
With Men.


There has been created in New York
city class of young women who work
for a living as telegraphers, type writ
ers, secretaries and other intellectual
occupations. Because several scandals
have become notorious among them
careless tongues wag recklessly, but as
a rule they are just about the incest,
loveliest girls in town. A philanthropilc,
matrOn of millions said to me: ''Half
the stories these girls tell are of the
tests their characters are put to, the ap-
prOacheS they must ever guard against,
the insults they must pocket or digest"
says New York letter in the Indian
apOliS News. "One young woman [
know of secured place as secretary to
a lawyer one day, and next day he
flung his arms around her and kissed
her. Another had to carry manuscript
to an office every now and then, and
one day white-haired head of the
placed vowed he loved her. He said he
was unhappily married, but he hoped
that would provoke her sympathy, and
not her dislike. An employee of the
custom service, not so far from here as
to be out of this state, was sent to
search suspected woman smuggler,
and when she undertook her task the
Smuggler proved to be man, very
keen-witted practical humoriSt. One
concern i'll town, which employs hun
dredS of girls, put detectives on the
sidewalk to prevent them from being
insulted out of doors by persons waiting
for them to come out. The detectives
would be more useful inside the build
ing. But the subject makes me wax
warm as | ponder over it, and as the
things which l know about wOman'S
work beside man pour in;On my intellect
like young Niagara. You would also
be indignant could you know the sum
of torture girls put up with to keep
fiOOrwalkerS and superintendent from
falsely reporting them and getting them
Discharged; the armor they have to
wear to keep employers in their places;
the things they have to hear and see in
silence, knowing there is no redress but
to throw up their livings."
The speaker is leader in the
WOmen'S Christian association and no
eXaggerater. She continued: II am
more inclined to agree with those male
critics of our sex who say that they find
the working girls growing demoralized
by contact with the noble lords of the
race, not by losing their honor, but by
SIOWluS CdllOuS dltu Cy lIiCdl dllu uCNCI-
Oping a rare ability to talk back in the
same coarse language with which they
are addressed-'to give as good as they
get" as the saying goes. There are thou
sands of honest girls in this town who
have become like that. If there
is any revolution in the sex,
it is the one that has resulted
in this new growth of girls who
pride themselves on knowing every
thing. and being able to meet any sort
of a man without a blush, and with
cudgels of slang and dubiuos reparteet to
fight him off with. They are almost
a third sex. They are honest wOmen,as
the saying goes. but with skins too
tough for blush to pierce, and with none
of that shyness and mOdesty which have
won women half their battles so far.
That's what putting women side by side
with men in business is doing, or it is
one thing it is doing, to say the least.
The man who tries to prove the sex
gilt-edged by working with the riff-raff
of moledom, without the protection of
parents and brothers or any other means
of keeping the average man in check, is
a dear, well-meaning. dumpling-hearted
fellow. but he has heap to learn, all the
same"